Recursive __dict__ call on python object?

Question

Is there a clean way to have dict called on all attributes of a python object? Specifically, when I call dict on a my object, I get this:

{'edges': [<dawg.Edge instance at 0x107aa0200>,
           <dawg.Edge instance at 0x10a581a70>,
           <dawg.Edge instance at 0x10656a680>]}

but I'd like that output to be the instance's dict() instead of the instance description.

Edit: I guess I should clarify that I'm trying to JSONify the object, so I need type(obj['edges'][0]) to be a dict.

Answer 1

I think the repr solution would be cleaner, but you can also get what you want by adding this line after getting the dictionary you describe above (im calling it d1)

d2 = {'edges' : map(lambda x: x.getDict(), d1['edges'])}

OR with list comprehension instead of map

d2 = {'edges' : [i.getDict() for i in d1['edges']]}

If you can describe for me what you want a little more I'll try to either implement getDict or write something more in that lambda, but I'm not sure enough about what you're going for. Is it the dictionary of all of edges fields?